The All-Stars lineup was dotted with semi-pro players. Only Nahem
had any worthy major league experience but the lineup was bolstered
by the addition of two outstanding African- Americans – Willard
Brown and pitcher
Leon Day.

The first game of the series was played at Soldier Field in
Nurnberg, Germany, on August 30, 1945. The Red Circlers took the
game, 9-2, with Ewell Blackwell allowing just five hits. Brown was
"the only man who had much luck hitting Blackwell," wrote TheStars and Stripes on September 3, 1945.

OISE All-Stars ETO
World Series Champions in 1945. Willard Brown is front row,
fourth from left.

Game two, also at Nurnberg, was a pitching duel with Negro League
superstar,
Leon Day, claiming a 2-1 victory for the All-Stars. Brown's
sixth inning single scoring Joe Herman with the go-ahead run. The
third game of the series moved to the All-Stars home ground in
Rheims, France, and was another 2-1 win for the All-Stars with Brown
scoring the first run on a double by Nick Macone. The Red Circlers
came back to tie the series in game four, winning 5-0 against
Leon Day with a two-run home run from
Harry Walker. The fifth and deciding game was played at Nurnberg
on September 8, with the OISE All-Stars edging the Red Circlers 2-1,
to claim the ETO World Series crown. Both Brown and Day, Negro
League stars playing as part of an integrated team, were key factors
in the OISE victory.

Brown
returned to the Kansas City Monarchs in 1946, batting .348 for
second best in the league and leading the circuit with 13 home runs.
With Jackie Robinson breaking the Organized baseball color-line in
1946, Willard Brown was signed by major league baseball’s St. Louis
Browns in July 1947, in the hopes that he might help the ailing team
and made his debut on July 19 against the Boston
Red Sox. However, he
was 31 years old by then. In his only major league season – which
lasted just one month - Brown batted .179 in 21 games but did hit
the first home run by an African-American in the American League.

Willard
Brown let his bat speak for him in the winter following his release
from St. Louis. In the Puerto Rican Winter League, Brown hit 27 home
runs while winning the league's Triple Crown.

He rejoined
the Kansas City Monarchs in 1948, and won the Negro American League
batting title in 1951 with a .417 average. In 1954, aged 43, he was
back in organized baseball, and hit 35 home runs in the Texas League
to help lead Houston to the pennant.

Willard
Brown passed away on August 4, 1996 in Houston, Texas. He was 81 and
had been suffering from Alzheimer’s.

Brown was
elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame by Special Committee in 2006.